


Red Hair, Black Hood

by Luluw5



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Horror, Magic, Non-Linear Narrative, fairy tale AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luluw5/pseuds/Luluw5
Summary: If you go out in the woods today, wear your blackest coat and your brightest smile, because you never know which will let you escape with your life.





	1. Red Hair, Black Hood

It was a lovely day to go into the woods, but one must always dress carefully. The boy’s mother draped a raven black cloak over his shoulders, and planted a ruby red kiss on the crown of his head.

“Don’t stray from the path, Shōyō.” She handed him a wicker basket. “You’ll be home before dark.”

The boy took the basket and the jacket and the kiss as it landed one last time on his brow. His mother smelled like the pastries she had baked, and her kisses tickled his face.

“I will,” the boy promised, turning his bright gaze to the door. “And I’ll bring these pastries to grandmother’s house.”

The woods were like any other, tall and deep and secret. Danger hid under stone, branch and foot, but none of it lay on the rugged dirt path that led into the heart of the woods.

The boy walked on the forest path without fear as he had countless times before. He could hear squirrels playing in the bows of dark cedar pines, chasing errant sunbeams that managed to break through the woods’ oppressive canopy. Shadows lurked in every corner, throwing the crescent shapes of leaves and the imprints of spindly branches across the boy’s face. His eyes shone like spotlights, declaring his presence to the gloomy wood.

“You’re far from home,” the shadows said.

“I’m not scared,” the boy whispered, and he hid his gaze beneath a cloak dark as crow. “I’m only going to grandmother’s house.”

But the shadows would not be dissuaded. 

“You could get lost,” the voices said. They tasted doubt on the boy’s skin as they pressed even closer. "Lost forever.”

“I won’t get lost,” the boy replied. “I’ll stay on the path and be home before dark.”

The shadows lengthened as the boy walked on, slowly stretching their inky fingers towards the hem of his raven cloak.

“Here we come,” the shadows said. “Are you afraid?”

The boy did not turn his head. The shadows crept even closer.

“Here we come,” they said, “are you going to run away?”

The boy said nothing. He walked straight ahead, basket in hand. The shadows giggled and surged forth, grasping for the hem of his ebony cloak. They would have this boy; they would take the fire in his hair and the light in his eyes and they would  _snuff him out_. But the boy would not be taken. Nimbly he evaded the shadows’ grasp, leaping clear of their sticky fingers into the safety of a golden beam of light.

“I don’t have time to play right now,” the boy called back, “I have to get to grandmother’s house.”

The boy walked away, hair flashing like fire beneath the fairy lights hidden in the trees.

“I’ll be home before dark!”

Beyond the path, something watched the shadows retreat in shame.

“You never win.” The words rolled out from behind a sly, sharp smile.

“Someday,” the shadows hissed, and the thing laughed lowly.

“Not today.”

* * *

Shadows melted away and fairy lights gradually disappeared as the boy ventured deeper into the forest. Branches parted, splitting the canopy wide to let golden light fall through. The air seemed softer here, cushioned by yellow pollen and glowing motes of dust. Woodland creatures napped in the beds of purple flowers that grew just before the tree line, but none on the path. The flowers’ sweet scent perfumed the air. However, the boy did not stop.

“Ssstay with me?” A lazy voice drawled from somewhere beyond the path. “Ssstay?”

The boy paid it no mind. Leaves whispered nervously as a gust of wind swept past. Something moved behind the tree line. The scent of flowers in the air grew thicker.

“Ssstay,” they insisted, calling out to him in their pitiful, flower voices. An unfelt wind stirred the irises; their indigo petals trembled under the boy’s bright gaze.

“I can’t stay,” the boy said, moistening his lips. “I have to go to grandmother’s house and bring her these pastries.”

“Ssstay,” the flowers chorused. Their scent choked the air. “Brrring flowersss for Grandma.”

The boy hesitated. His eyes drifted from the path, and the forest held its breath. His nose twitched. Something moved behind the trees.  
  
The flowers waited. They would have this boy. They would have his soft skin and his raven cloak; they would hold him for years and years until he crumbled into nothing, but the boy would not be had. He fixed his eyes to the path, not once looking back at the animals and the flowers.

“No,” the boy said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I have to keep going. I’m going to be home before dark.”

The flowers wailed as he went on, running now with his cloak pulled tight around his face. He ran and ran until the flowers’ cries faded, and their sweet scent left his nose.

“You almost had him.” A figure moved amidst the trees. The flowers fell silent as its svelte voiced washed over them.

“You do betterrr,” they chortled in response.

The voice laughed, cold and dark.

“I will.”

* * *

The woods dimmed once more, but that was fine. The boy knew how to handle the dark. He knew his light would win. Fairy orbs peeked out from behind the trees, watching, waiting. They were the crown jewel of the verdant forest, keeping the true darkness at bay. The woods were tall and deep and secret, but they were never dark.

“I’m not scared,” the boy whispered. The fairy orbs peeked out, and drank the glow from his skin. “I’m going to be home before dark.” The woods coveted light. The woods coveted him.

“Oh,” a soft voice, silken and strong, appeared at the tree line. “But it’s never dark here.”

“Wherever there’s light, darkness follows,” the boy replied, facing front. His legs moved stiffly, but he made them move. There was no time to dally on the way to grandmother’s house. The figure approached the path.

“My, what red hair you have,” it chuckled. “May I take some home to my family?”

“No, you cannot,” the boy replied, staring fixedly ahead, not once slowing his pace. But the figure kept up with him easily.

“My, what a dark cloak you have,” it said. “May I borrow it to warm my chilly bones?”

The boy’s eye slid to the side, and he caught sight of long, coarse hair and bone white claws. He shivered and walked on. “No, you cannot.”

“My, what a sweet smelling basket you have,” it said. And the two came to a stop at a fork in the path. “May I take it to sate my hunger?”

The figure leaned in as far as the path would allow, and drew a deep breath through his nose. The boy turned his head and drew back his hand, and all at once came face to face with this stranger.

“Well,” the wolf said, smiling wickedly, “I guess that’s invitation enough.”

He lifted one heavy paw and set it on the dirt path, the next soon following. The boy looked up and up and up to the wolf’s head, shaggy and unkempt, and then he looked down and down and down to the wolf’s lean legs and deadly claws. The boy fought the urge to run.

“Mr. Wolf,” the boy said brightly. The wolf bit back a bark that could have been a laugh, but said nothing. So the boy continued. “I would like very much to give you some of these sweets, but they belong to my poor grandmother, and I must get them to her right away.”

The boy turned to leave, but the wolf caught his cloak in a careful claw.

“Ah, I see,” the wolf hummed thoughtfully, “a present for granny. That’s very kind of you, little boy.”

“Hinata,” the boy said. He began to sweat. “Hinata Shōyō.”

“Kuroo,” the wolf introduced himself with a flourish and a bow. Hinata was able to see the wolf’s long, black tail before the stranger straightened, and he thought that the name suited him. “If you really need to get those goodies to Gran, I can show you a shortcut.”

“O-Oh,” Hinata said. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. “Is that so?”

“Verily,” the wolf replied. His smile grew as he took a step off the path, dragging Hinata and his cloak along with him. “Come, let me show you.”

“Oh,” Hinata said, eyes darting about nervously. “I can’t do that...there could be danger.”

The wolf laughed. “There’s nothing to fear! I’m perfectly capable of protecting you.” He took another step back, and Hinata’s toes pushed the edge of the path.

“Uhm, that’s very nice of you, but really you shouldn’t!” The boy’s cloak slipped and twisted as he tried to shrug it off, but the dusky fabric snared, tangled, and pulled him towards the woods. The fairy orbs peered down from their perches high in the trees, hiding no longer as slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Hinata left the path.

 

“It’s really no trouble." The wolf smiled a large smile that showed every one of his teeth. "I’m always this nice.”


	2. La Belle du bois

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not accept help from strangers. You never know which intentions will lead you astray, the good or the malicious.

It began many years ago in a village that did not know how to hold onto their children. The woods appeared one day, filling the stony tundra where before there had been nothing but hills. Some called it a miracle and spoke of it only in hushed whispers; some declared it a curse and hid away in their homes. 

Those who worshipped it visited often, bringing candles and wine to chase away the chill of night. Those who feared it stayed back behind closed shutters and locked doors, not even glancing at the baleful wood lest it sense their gaze.

And the wood, young and callow as it was, watched all. It accepted the baskets of food and the offerings of wine, letting the libations sink deep into its roots to rout the chill from the soil. The land began to change under the forest, spreading warmth and light to the village, and into the sky. It invited woodland creatures and sunlight and new rainfall into its arms, and even those who had been so suspicious of it once saw the virtue of the forest, and their hearts softened.

The wary and the old, and the ingenue and the young alike named the forest Lightwood for the colors that danced between the crowns and the branches of its trees at night. It was of magic, and the townspeople’s belief, fear, and veneration strengthened the green wood, but soon it became clear that their strength alone would not be enough to satisfy it.

One day a young woman, only sixteen years of age, vanished into the woods. Not a soul had seen where she had gone, and not a soul dared accuse Lightwood of taking her, but everyone knew. Soon the children began to go missing, and every night after that the lights in the woods glowed brighter.

The people of the town are frightened. They don’t know what to do. It has been only months since they welcomed the change of the woods, and now their trust is being flouted. There is no burning it, vast and powerful as it is. There is no reasoning with it, as it is not a human thing and has no reason. There is no knowing what it wants.

“It craves beauty,” some say, hiding their daughters away.

“It craves strength,” others insist, locking their sons in their rooms.

“It covets youth!” They shout, and slowly the children of the village vanish from the street, only venturing out under the watchful eyes of the old.

“It craves nothing,” a young woman scoffs. She pulls her only daughter through the abandoned streets with determination. “It is only a forest. Children are bound to get lost when no one is watching, mark my words, Hitoka.” 

Her young daughter, a girl of only thirteen, watches her mother with a wary gaze and bobs her golden-blonde head. The morning wanes. The young girl’s mother pulled her from her sheets just minutes before, insisting that she dress quickly and prudently. The young girl donned her hard pointed shoes and her terry cloth frock and followed her mother to the edge of the woods.

“Hitoka,” the mother says, getting down on her knees in front of her young girl. She is met with muddled brown eyes, brimming with confusion. “There is nothing in these woods to fear, I promise you this. I need you to do something for me. Do you think you can manage?”

The young girl nods.

“There’s a good girl.” Her mother smiles. “I need for you to run into Lightwood and find me an herbal remedy. Just like the one Mrs. Géant made for her son. Do you remember?”

The young girl nods again, and the mother’s face breaks in relief.

“Good. Oh you’re so good.” Standing, she pulls her precious daughter into an embrace and ushers her towards the woods. “I know you can do it, Hitoka, but if something goes wrong you come straight home. There is nothing to fear in these woods.”

“Nothing to fear in these woods,” the young girl repeats softly, taking her first steps onto the forest path. When she turns back, her mother is gone.

The woods are not tall and dark. They do not loom over Hitoka like a gallows as she begins to trek their dusty trail. They are cool, set with juniper arches and the smell of pine. Even, clear daylight filters through the canopy of trees throwing the imprints of leaves and branches on the pale dirt road. It is warm here. The air moves in heavy breaths. Hitoka suspects the woods can taste her, taste her fear and her uncertainty. 

Muddled brown eyes cast their searchlights to the sides of the trail, but no potent herb appears. Her lip finds its way between her teeth, and her hem worries between her fingers as the young girl ventures deeper and deeper into the wood. 

“Nothing to fear in these woods,” she whispers to herself. But the words do nothing to calm her agitated heart. “I just need to find the herbs, and then I can go home. Nothing to fear in these woods.”

Something in the trees hears her pleas; something chooses to answer. 

High in the verdant crown, a lone branch shakes free. Edged with leaves like needles and veined with sticky sap, this branch, no bigger than the young girl’s hand, falls to the middle of the path. She stops to stare.

“Is this,” the young girl says once she found her sticky voice, “is this the herb I’m looking for?”

No one answers, so she picks up the branch. Holding it close to her face, she whispers, “Are you the herb I’m looking for?”

The branch whines and trembles, shaking as though struck by the wind,  _ “Decidedly not! But she doesn’t know this, and she made me fall. Place me by the side of the path, and be gone with you!” _

The young girl does as the branch asks, laying it gently in a cushion of dead leaves and moss, and continues on her way. She knows now that something is watching her. She knows now that something creeps through the tree branches twenty feet overhead, quick, nimble, and quiet. 

Pine needles litter the floor to either side, but none lay on the path. 

Once again, just ahead of her, a branch falls. This time it belongs to a juniper, prickly and lobed with tiny knots ready to unfurl into leaves and berries. The young girl picks this branch off the path, and asks it, “Are you the herb I’m looking for?”

The branch shudders and twists in her grasp, but the young girl holds firm. 

_ “No,”  _ the branch hisses finally,  _ “so please release me. I must return. She took me away and I must return.” _

The young girl does as it asks, placing the touchy stick on the forest floor before wiping her hands on her frock and continuing on her way. She glances up, trying to catch sight of the stranger in the treetops. She thinks she almost sees them, but whatever it is melts away too quickly into the shadow of a pine for her to know for sure.

The girl walks on.

The woods do not change. Hitoka does not reach the end of the path. The trees are spartan, uniform. They betray nothing of what lays beyond the edge of the woods; they belie the passage of time. It isn’t until the young girl reencounters the first stick that she accepts how really and truly lost she is.

She finds it exactly how she left it, stiff and bitter on the bed of dead leaves and moss. For a long time she stares at it, reaching for the nerve to pluck it up and demand it show her the way, but never quite getting ahold of herself. Finally, her better sense wins over, and she tries to speak.

“Excuse me, please, I seem to be lost. Can you tell me the way?”

The branch does not answer. It is known that the trees have ears, but once separated from their bodies branches become quite deaf. 

“Excuse me?” She tries louder. Now the branch stirs. Its needles perk up in interest, and it answers breathily,

“ _ Don’t you know? If you want to leave the forest, you must pay a debt.” _

Hitoka shakes her head. “I haven’t left the path. I owe nothing. Can you please tell me the way?” The branch laughs, and the young girl is chilled.

_ “No, I cannot. I am of the forest and owe you nothing. Try asking her for a way out.”  _ The branch falls silent, inanimate, once more.

The young girls asks questions, demands to know who “she” is, but receives no answers. Finally, she plucks up her skirts and continues on her way. 

She meets the second branch soon after, and it proves to be as helpful as the first. She leaves it too by the side of the road and walks on, wondering exactly how she can solicit help from the mysterious spirit of the forest. 

By the time she encounters the first branch for the third time, Hitoka has had enough. 

“Please!” she cries, throwing her head back and reaching out to the tree tops. “Tell me how to leave!”

The forest holds its breath; the young girl waits.

Gradually a ripple passes through the trees, shaking them from their highest branches to their trunks. Hitoka turns her eyes to the canopy and catches sight of a petite silhouette moving in front of the wave like the wind, vaulting from treetop to treetop with otherworldly ease.

The air stills, and softly, so softly that Hitoka nearly mistakes it, the branch whimpers, “ _ Go! Go now, follow her and you’ll find your way out! _ ”

The young girl doesn’t waste another moment. She races down the forest path as quickly as her pointed shoes would allow her, sights firmly locked on the trembling treetops ahead. Her feet pound down the trail, wearing over the sets of dusty footprints she had left behind twice over.

A small voice calls out from the side of the path.

“ _ Wait _ !” The juniper branch screeches. “ _ Don’t leave me here! Take me with you _ !”

The young girl stutters and stops, weighing her kindness against her desire to go home. Finally she stoops to collect the branch from the side of the road only to recoil as a stinging pain glazes her palm. The branch laughs, loud and mean, and flicks a drop of the girl’s scarlet blood onto the the forest floor. 

“ _ You better run, _ ” it taunts.  _ “You’ll lose her if you don’t hurry _ .”

Tears appear in the young girl’s eyes, and she sprints away from the branch as though someone lit a fire beneath her. The girl runs hard and far until the trees become unfamiliar. Their canopy splits, letting golden light fall through. The air seems softer, cushion by pollen and motes of dust and the diffused rays of the sun. 

The path ends here. There is nowhere else to go.

All around her purple flowers erupt from the ground, standing attention as the woods hold their breath. Something shakes the branches above her. The young girl tilts her head back, letting the tears fall freely from her eyes. The woods have her and they will never let her go. She knows this, and despair settles in her heart. Her palm aches where the underhanded juniper cut her. It’s the pain of a debt waiting to be fulfilled. 

A saccharine scent fills the air, soothing her bleary eyes and her heavy heart. The girl feels her pulse begin to settle, and it remains calm as the proud trees slowly bend their trunks towards her. 

A beautiful girl descends from the treetops. Her skin is rough and veined in sap. Leaves and vines flow through her hair, cut off sharply just above her eyes. A blush like roses blooms beneath her cheeks. Her eyes are large, dark and devoid of light. She stands before Hitoka on a platform of leaves, her trees faithfully holding her just above the path. The path is not of the forest. The path is magic all of its own, and it won’t stand for the forest to touch it. The nymph parts her taupe lips and speaks. 

“Stay.”

The girl bites her lip and shakes her head, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

“I need to get home.”

The nymph’s eyes deepen. They stare into the young girl’s heart and slowly drain the light from her skin. The young girl can feel her resolve weaken. The scent of flowers fills her senses, and her hands begin to shake.

“Please,” she says. The nymph stares impassively, dark eyes betraying no hint of emotion or life.

“Stay,” she repeats. The young girl wavers. She owes a debt to the wood, and there are worse places to fulfill it. She glances around. Golden light presses down against her skin and the cloying smell of irises is overpowering, yet the air is gentle and her heart is calm. There are worse places to spend an eternity.

The nymph reaches out a hand. The young girl doesn’t resist as she slowly pushes her backwards off the path and into the field of irises. The flowers are warm, friendly. They press up against her skin and welcome her into their sweet embrace. The young girl’s vision begins to dim.

“Stay,” she says. “I’ll stay.”

The last she sees is the strange girl step over the path to crouch beside her. A foreign hand strokes her hair as Hitoka slips into a deep sleep. 

  
  



	3. Birches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In desperate times we form unlikely companions, but trouble can overcome even the sanctuary of company.

The woods are a thing of legend. They have been there for as long as anyone can remember, deep, heartless, and imposing. They say that if you venture in, you will never come out. 

But that isn’t true. The young boy knows of plenty of people who have wandered into the woods, merchants, travellers, thieves, and they have all returned without a scratch. What the people mean to say is  _ children _ never leave the wood.

There is an old wives tale about the forest. Parents and siblings like to tell it around the hearth to scare the younger members of the house. It goes like this. 

Sometimes, once, maybe twice at the turn of harvest season, they say a child will appear at the edge of the woods. They will be lost, confused, a century out of time. (Children who lose to the woods enter a debt of 100 years, everyone knows that). Returning is hard, or so they say. No one knows what the children had to do to preserve their bodies for so long. Some say they make a deal with the spirits of the forest, trade their waking hours or their ability to sleep in return for bodies frozen in time. Others say they have to grow, take air and light and build themselves up so that when the years wear them down, they don’t lose any of their youth. Some claim that humans can’t survive in the woods for that long, claim that the children must become something else entirely. Something of magic. The young boy doesn’t know what to think. He’s heard the stories countless times, but he’s never been in the forest before.

Children don’t enter the forest, not if they’re smart.

But the young boy’s friends are not smart. They’re reckless and foolhardy and brash, and time and time again they speak of going into the forest to prove their bravery. The young boy doesn’t share their enthusiasm; in fact he shares very little with his friends. If not for his dear mother and father he would not have made friends at all.

“Every young boy needs companions,” his father said.

To which his mother replied, “Of course. He needs peers with whom he can play, and learn the ways of the world.”

And so the boy found himself, at his mother and father’s insisting, at the whims of three dense boys with a penchant for mischief. If his parents knew that this would lead the young boy into Lightwood, perhaps that would have changed their minds. 

“Are you scared?” They whisper excitedly, jostling each other with their elbows and shoulders. “Are you brave?”

The young boy does not feel brave standing at the head of the path. He only feels apprehension. Long bows of juniper and pine twist together to enclose the dusty forest road beneath a ceiling of green. Sunlight filters through the dense foliage, casting the imprints of leaves and branches over the boys’ green faces. 

“Scared yet? Scared yet?” The young boy’s companions chorus gleefully as they tromp over the dirt road. Their faces are wide and filled with excitement, but the young boy feels ill. People in the village always spoke of the forest as a living thing, but now the young boy can only imagine that it is dead and filled with thousands of empty eyes.  

“I’m not scared!” The oldest and wildest boy says. He stands on the very edge of the dirt path facing the woods head on. “I bet there’s nothing even to be afraid of!”

The other two egg him on, whooping and hollering while the young boy looks back nervously. The view of the village is cut off by a thick line of trees. The boy’s blood runs cold. They didn’t pass any turns in the road. The boy’s companions pay no mind to his unease; they continue to jostle each other closer and closer to the edge of the path until finally the eldest crosses the line. The young boy’s words of caution die on his lips as the other two follow suit, leaving the path behind to explore the forest beyond.

The air turns deathly still. The young boy and his three companions are the only things in the entire forest that dare to move. He opens his mouth to issue a warning.

“What’s wrong, Tadashi?” One of the others calls out before he can speak. “Are you going to run away? Are you going to run home? Come here and play with us.”

The boy shakes his head and holds his tongue. His companions wander further, scarcely looking back at him now as they make their way towards the trees. The young boy trembles. His knees turn to jelly. His pulse thunders in his ears and his breath comes heavily, yet he can’t move an inch. He can only watch as his companions come upon the tree line, only watch as they place their hands upon the rough bark, only watch as the trees suck the light from their fingertips, leaving them formless, empty husks. 

The young boys breaks. He cries out and falls to his knees, but there is no changing what has been done. His friends owe a debt to the forest, and they will pay it with their skin and their bones. They gave up their light to the trees, and must spend a century as shadows of themselves until the debt is repaid. 

The boy does nothing as they come for him. They creep up at the edges of his vision, whispering, chiding. They ask him to come with them. They beg him to join their game. They accuse him of wanting to run. But they cannot get to him, protected by the boundaries of the path as he is. 

Unfortunately the path is no friend to him. 

It seems to be hours before the young boy finds the strength to move, days before he begins his grim walk towards his village. Years pass in an instant once he realizes that the path no longer holds the way home.

Grimly he turns on his heels and walks deeper into the woods.

There are many things to fear in Lightwood. Tadashi was brought up on stories of changelings and fairies, wolves and bears, light and darkness. Life is a balance that every living being disrupts with its presence. The young usurp the old, the big crush the small, the many will win out over the few, and darkness will always follow light. Yet there exist entities such as Lightwood that scoff in the face of natural order, that will do anything in their power to free themselves. The woods will obtain light by any means necessary. They will never allow darkness to enter, so it steals the light of others to shore up its natural magic. They watch him now as he walks beneath the curving bows of juniper and pine, safe on the treacherous dirt path. They watch and they wait; they wait for the moment the young boy will surrender his light to the wood. 

But they will wait a while longer. The young boy has situated himself in the very center of the path, miles away from the forest’s grasp. He quickly learns that the path is a fickle thing, and while it offers him protection, by no means will it deliver him safely. As he trudges through the dusky woods, the road splits and splits again, each time forcing the young boy to choose between two undesirable paths. They lead nowhere, labyrinthine and endless.

He doesn’t last long. Before midday, the young boy collapses before a fork in the road. He is tired and hungry, and his bare feet sting with unseen cuts. He knows better than to solicit the forest for aid; it only takes and takes and spits you back out once it’s finished with you. The young boy curls in on himself and cries. It’s all he can do.

“How pathetic.”

The young boy sits up, face streaked with muddy tears.

“Who’s there?”

The speaker does not come forward. The young boy stands and casts his searching gaze amongst the trees. It lands on a glimmer hidden behind a tall pine, just a hint of golden light that dances on the air. A tall boy steps out from behind the tree that Tadashi quickly learns only just concealed him.

He stands twenty feet tall from the soles of his unclothed feet to the top of his head. A soft golden shimmer permeates the air inches off of his skin, barely discernable in the noon day glow. His eyes are large and empty and dark, and despite his size the giant looks no older than Tadashi.

“Who are you?” The young boy asks, rooted to the path in awe. The tall boy says nothing, he steps towards the path. His tread is so light that it does not disturb the air at all, so it is as if in a dream that he stretches his hand out to the young boy, and lifts him off the path.

“Wait–” the young boy starts to say, but his words are quickly lost as the tall boy carries him into the trees. The forest passes by in a blur of jade and mahogany, the details seeping into one another as the young boy’s head spins. He tries to make sense of what is happening. Who is this giant? Where is he taking him? And how can he ever find his way home again? All of these questions swirl around his skull and drain into his throat where they congeal into a thick lump. He knows the answers. The tall boy is of the forest; he is taking him into the forest’s grasp; he won’t be able to find his way home until his debt is settled, provided it’s already been called for. The young boy doesn’t feel any different. He cannot tell if he has been indebted to the forest yet, only that the movement of the air and the shine on the tall boy’s skin is starting to make his head spin. 

After what seems like miles, the tall boy slows and then stops. There is nothing conspicuous about their destination, a sandy clearing edged by a circle of stones. The tall boy stands on the perimeter of the clearing and places Tadashi inside.

“What are you doing?” The young boy asks.

“I don’t know,’ the giant says as he sets the young boy down within the circle of stones. “Usually I can resist, but this time the call was too strong.”

“The call?”

“Of the forest. It craves light, so it seeks to incur debts.”

“Oh,” the young boy says. He toes a smooth rock. “So where am I?”

“On a fragment of the path,” the tall boy explains. “It will still protect you, even though it was cut off from its body.”

“Is that why you brought me here?” The tall boy hesitates and takes a step backwards into the trees. His skin seems to glow brighter, and the pits behind his eyes deepen.

“Maybe,” he says.

The young boy feels himself out. Two legs, two arms, two eyes, the forest didn’t take anything from him during the ride. He is debt-free.

No. He looks at the tall boy, still standing in the trees. He was taken by a being of the forest. He owed  _ something _ , he just doesn’t know what. He studies the tall boy’s face, tense, clear, radiant. And empty. The young boy thinks he can see sadness there, but it may be a trick of the light.

“Can you show me?” The young boy asks.

The giant’s eyes fall open, searchlights amidst the shadows.

“Show you what?”

Tadashi casts his gaze around and smiles weakly.

“Show me everything.

* * *

The forest is a polar organism. Like attracts like, and it is filled with pockets of light and pools of shadows, but no one place is safer than another. The only way the young boy can be sure his life is not at risk is on the path fragments scattered through the woods.

“How did they get here?” He asks the tall boy as they rest in the shade of a great pine tree.

“I don’t know,” the tall boy answers. “Most of them appeared before I came here. I’ve never seen one made.”

“Do you know why they’re made?”

The tall boy is silent for a moment, considering. 

“I can try and show you.”

He takes them to a place where the canopy splits to the sky and the sweet scent of flowers perfumes the air. The near perfect circle is ringed with irises, broken only at the far side where the blooms have yet to overtake the path. A young girl sleeps amidst the flowers. She looks tranquil, helpless, eyebrows pinched as though troubled by what she sees in her dreams.

“How long has she been here?” The young boy asks.

“A while,” the giant responds. 

How long is a while, the young boy wonders. Long enough for flowers to claim the girl’s small limbs, creeping over and under like living chains. Long enough for callow branches to appear amidst her cornsilk locks, knotted and dimpled, on the verge of bloom. The young boy traces the sticky lines of sap that vein her skin with his eyes, and decides that ‘a while’ is long enough to begin to resemble the forest. 

“How did she come to be here?”

“The same as the rest. The forest claimed her. Even if we try to help, the woods are in our blood, and they move us as they please.”

“We?” The young boy looks up. The giant avoids his gaze. They both look back to the girl.

“I’m not alone. Maybe it would be better if I were.”

For a while not even the forest dares whisper, quieted as the boy came to terms with the facts he has been presented.

“You know,” the young boy says, “she’s very comely. I wonder if her parents miss her.”

He crouches by the edge of the path and the forest holds its breath. Golden motes dance in the air, spinning in and out of Tadashi’s vision. He makes a decision, one he may come to regret, but in the moment showered by golden light and buoyed by the scent of irises, he decides to act. The young boy reaches out a finger, and swipes a droplet of amber sap from her cheek. 

“So now what?” The young boy asks. He can feel the change in the air, just like he can feel a growing emptiness inside of him. High above his head branches tremble in appreciation, drinking the light from his skin. 

“Now you stay.” The tall boy’s eyes are empty and his voice is hollow.

“Forever?”

The tall boy shakes his head. Children who lose to the forest pay a debt of 100 years, everybody knows that.

“What do I do?” 

“You could change,” the tall boy offers, “become like me.”

The young boy thinks of the forest. He thinks of the sleeping girl and the imprints of leaves cast on her face. He wonders how he could stay, how he could survive in a place that wants to take everything from him. The young boy considers changing, considers taking in the air and the light and building himself up until he stands above the trees, but no. He doesn’t want to become sad and empty, all his light on the outside.

“Could you put me to sleep?” He asks hopefully. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how.”

The young boy chews his lip and thinks. He looks at the thick line of trees, rife with shadows that flitter and twitch in the breeze. He thinks of his friends and how close to shadow they became when the forest seized their light. He thinks of how the sun would feel on his face if only he could be a little closer. He chooses.

Their eyes meet from across the clearing.

“I’m going to bring light to Lightwood,” he declares. “I’m going to need your help.”

* * *

He whispers his idea to the tall boy and waits as it is considered.

“Yes,” he says slowly, “I think I know where you need to go.” The young boy’s smile is frightening and blinding.

 

The tall boy leads them to the south end of Lightwood. The trees don’t thin out so much as they fade into one another. Birches and aspens mix with the cedar pines, diluting the sharp scent of evergreen with the heady aroma of rotting wood and dark soil. The leaves glow green as even sunlight filters through the trees’ bows. It will be dark soon, but nothing of the forest’s demeanor betrays its dread.

Everything is shrouded in a mask of green as the tall boy’s legs speed them along until the sky opens and Tadashi’s vision clears. A tall birch stands alone in the middle of a clearing. The young boy can tell right away that this clearing is not like the others in which he sought shelter; its curve is irregular, and verdant wisps of grass blanket the forest floor. The birch’s long arms stretch over the glade, but they do little to catch the last rays of sunlight that fall through its fingers. The giant sets him down at the tree line.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

The young boy walks forward. The forest holds its breath as he wades through the sea of green, coming finally to stand in front of the proud birch. The young boy lifts his hand and presses it to the papery bark. Hollow eyes watch as his form slowly dissolves.

 

The forest is a lively place full of empty promises, but no longer so dark. Fairy lights linger beneath leaf and branch, filling the wood with their warm laughter. They are known by all the creatures of the forest to bring light to even its darkest corners, and in their presence one feels just a little safer, a little freer.

But they are of the forest, and they too answer a call. In Lightwood, one cannot be too trusting, no matter how kind or how bright a being may be.


End file.
